


your heart was an open book

by orphan_account



Series: What We Leave Behind [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Angst, Backstory, Birthright version, F/M, Pre-Series, Pseudo-Incest, Speculation, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 20:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4277400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eventually, Leon starts to think that maybe he loves her too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your heart was an open book

**Author's Note:**

> If you don't know which one Leon is, he's the younger brother on the Nohr side. ^o^

**_i. prodigy boy_ **

When Leon is seven years old, King Garon pushes them all into posing for a family portrait.

"Sit up straight and _smile,_ please," urges the long-suffering painter, his brow sweaty under the combined gazes of so many royals.

It's not his fault, really. Trying to persuade five children to stand still for an hour is like herding cats, regardless of the blood flowing through their veins.

Marx sits up straight, but he does not smile. His face is perfectly serious in a way that befits the next ruler of Nohr.

No one else seems to feel like cooperating, though. Camilla is slouching and leaning into Kamui's side in a way that's throwing the other girl off balance too. She scoffs, and leans in close to whisper something into Kamui's ear. Kamui giggles in response, and brushes a lock of hair out of her face.

Elise is sleeping, head on Kamui's lap and legs splayed across Camilla's. No one, not even the painter, has the heart to wake her up. As for Leon—

Well.

The one thing that is most important to understand about Leon is this: he is a prodigy.

He is the second youngest of five, but he outperforms every one of his siblings when it comes to magic. It comes easily to him, and sometimes, when he closes his eyes, he can feel his own power thrumming through his veins.

Swordplay is another story, of course, but that has always been Marx's area of expertise, and Leon will not compete with Marx.

The tutors call him brilliant. They coo and fawn over the way magic bends itself over backwards for him, flows from his fingers so quickly, so _easily_ , constantly eager to do his will.

He will grow up to be a sorcerer nigh unparalleled among his peers, they say, though all of his siblings are talented. The Nohrian royal family is the pride and joy of their nation, a constellation of blazing bright stars lighting up their dark and stony realm.

He holds his head up high, crosses his arms and sneers. He is the picture-perfect haughty princeling, and maybe he always will be.

 

 

_**ii. hear me out** _

Sometimes, when it's late at night and no one is around to hear him think, he wonders what it would be like if he was like Elise or Kamui, or even Camilla and Marx.

What would it be like, if everyone loved him for the person he was, for his smile or his kindness or something else small and silly like that, instead of for the strength of his magical abilities?

Sometimes, he thinks it might be nice.

But these are foolish things to worry about, and Leon does not linger on them for long.

 

 

**_iii. pale skin and red eyes_ **

Leon is a prodigy, but of all his siblings, Leon thinks that Kamui is the most interesting.

There is a secret that Leon knows about her, after all, and it's the very best kind of secret, too. It is a secret that even she herself does not know.

When he thinks about it, it's sort of amusing how easy it can be, in such a big castle, for a little boy to sneak around and poke his nose in where he isn't wanted.

Marx and Camilla know the secret too, although they do not know that _he_ knows. Elise, on the other hand, does not. Even at the tender age of nine, Leon knows exactly why they cannot tell Elise, and why no one wanted to tell him, either.

The secret that everyone is keeping about Kamui, after all, is that she is not really their sibling.

She certainly  _looks_ like the rest of them, of course: she has the same pale skin and pale hair as the rest of them, though that is more of a common Nohrian trait than it is unique to their family.

The only thing that marks her as different, Leon quickly comes to realize, is her eyes— Kamui's eyes are as red as the setting sun, a striking contrast to the delicate lavender that is a trademark of Nohr's royal family.

That is proof enough for Leon, but Leon hadn't really needed too much convincing in the first place. Kamui has always seemed a little different from the rest of them anyway, had always been just one step sideways from fitting in.

She is fascinating to him anyway, but he is a prince and a genius. He is by far too dignified to follow a pretty girl around like a lost puppy.

 

 

_**iv. listening at doors** _

At thirteen, Leon is a small boy— still skinny and fragile, and pale in the way that most Nohrians seem to be.

It is when he is thirteen, and drifting aimlessly through the castle in between lessons, that he catches sight of the open door.

The door in question belongs to Camilla. This is surprising to him, because Camilla tends to keep her door shut, and lock it behind her for good riddance. But there the door is, open just wide enough for him to hear the voices leaking out from within.

He can hear the clink of silverware on plates, and soft violin music in the background. Someone laughs— after a moment’s pause, he identifies the person as Kamui. Camilla murmurs something, and then Kamui laughs again.

Leon creeps a little closer. He can’t help it: his older sisters are enigmas to him in a way that Marx is not, with their sparkling necklaces and fragrant perfumes and frilly skirts.

That is not to say, of course, that they are in any way inferior to him and Marx in combat, because they are not. At seventeen, Camilla is already a deft hand with an axe, and everyone expects Kamui to be a monster —literally— in battle, once her Manakete blood is surfaces.

He can see Kamui through the thin crack in the door. If he tries very hard, he could probably catch a glimpse of Camilla too, but he will not push his luck.

Kamui is wearing a dove grey dress with lacy sleeves today. It’s pretty, he thinks before he can stop himself, and then promptly flushes a deep red.

She is daintily cutting a cake into small, cube-like pieces. Leon watches her as she eats and laughs and smiles with Camilla, almost entranced.

It therefore comes as a shock to him, when her eyes flicker over to meet his, and he jumps, a little. She holds his gaze for a moment, and it makes his heart beat so loudly that he almost wonders whether they can hear it.

But Kamui does not reveal his snooping. Instead, she smiles demurely, and turns her gaze calmly to her cake.

Leon stands abruptly, and turns away.

When he scurries away, like a dog with its tail behind its legs, it’s with Kamui’s serene red gaze seared into the backs of his eyelids.

 

 

_**v. a love like a fragile baby bird** _

Upon later musings, Leon arrives at one conclusion: that Kamui is different from him somehow, in some fundamental way.

All of his siblings are different, of course. But Kamui is especially so, and not just because she is not really his sister. 

It is not that her personality is particularly mysterious, or that she is talented in some unique way. Quite the opposite, actually: out of all of them, Kamui is the most distinctly mundane.

She's terrible at magic, although her swordplay is fine. Her tactical abilities are completely nonexistent. If it wasn’t for the draconic blood running so strong through her veins, she would be completely and irreparably ordinary. This should be a bad thing, but somehow, bizarrely, it is not.

In a way, he almost envies her. She is weak where he is strong, and strong even despite her weakness, and because of that, people flock to her. He sees it happen with her butler and with his siblings, from Marx to Camilla to sweet little Elise.

He sees it happen with all of them, but especially with Marx, who watches Kamui with soft eyes, affectionate eyes. She reminds him of his mother, Leon thinks, and as a result Kamui will always be his favorite sister.

Kamui watches Marx in return, but it's different. Kamui watches Marx in a way that she watches no one else, all blushing cheeks and wide-eyed infatuation, like he is the stars and the moon and the sun, to her.

Leon isn't sure which one he dislikes more, and sometimes it makes his stomach churn.

He's never liked feeling like this, and a small, selfish part of him resents it. By extension, that same ugly part of him resents _her._

She isn’t even really their sister, he thinks guiltily. So how can they all love her so much? How can they love her more than they love _him_?

But another part of him quietly thinks that he is exactly the same as all the rest of them, because sometimes he wants to hold her hand, to hold her close, to keep her safe and never let her go.

He grapples with that thought for most of his childhood. It stays with him as he gets older and transitions into lanky adolescence, and even once he's teetered over the precipice of adulthood it remains a persistent itch in the back of his mind.

Eventually, he starts to think that maybe he loves her too.

 

 

  _ **vi. precious things**_

Many years later, when they are older and wiser and much, much more broken, they meet across the battlefield.

Kamui stands with her army, her sword at her side and a dragonstone in her hand. She is stronger now, and she has made her choice.

She has not chosen Nohr.

Leon meets her steady crimson gaze and does not flinch.

“There is only one punishment,” Leon says finally, his fingers crackling with the purple sparks of dark magic. He will not cry, and he will not plead for her to come back to them. “And the sentence is death.”

Once upon a time, the girl who stands before him was someone very precious to him.

Now she is a traitor, but the worst thing of all is that she is _still_ precious to him, in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> hAHAHAHA I'm writing fic before the game is even released in English. I don't know what's happening to me anymore.
> 
> But yeah, this is just some quick Leon speculation that I whipped up after reading his support conversations. XD
> 
> EDIT: This is now part of a series, because I got too excited, thoroughly spoiled myself, and ended up throwing together some drafts at 1 AM. So yeah.


End file.
